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Monday, July 21, 2008

Monday, July 21, 2008

It's rare to find authentic vintage cakes these days, but here we have a remarkably well preserved pair circa 1963. Note the "risque" surfer girl figurine - complete with original fabric lingerie! - and of course the matching surfer "dude" in a similarly provocative pose.

If you look here on the sides [pointing with metal expandable pointer-thingy] you'll see designs quite reminiscent of either wicker or macrame, both ancient arts most fortuitously abandoned once the nation as a whole shook off the decade's marijuana-induced haze. And speaking of marijuana, [looking over glasses] that is what was most likely used to make this "grass": the leaves were often crumbled onto cakes as an added "flavor enhancer". I suspect we could also blame marijuana for the overall lack of aesthetic appeal, but of course that's merely conjecture on my part. [pompous chortling]

Ahem. Yes, well.

There has been some damage inflicted on the icing over the years, and that frilly lace collar was no doubt added by a later owner, but - and here's the really exciting part - if you turn the cakes over like so, you can still just make out the original "Made in China" label. Exquisite.

I actually took these pictures in Brooklyn in the window of the sketchiest bakery I've ever seen. I thought of submitting them to Cake Wrecks but posted them on my blog instead: http://himalountain.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/your-typical-city-involved-in-a-typical-daydream/

Uhm... I don't get it. Are they at the park? If so, could they not have found a spot to lay out that ISN'T half in the mud and half on the grass? Or are they at the beach? Some non-sand bearing grassy beach. And if they are at the beach, someone needs to tell the Liev Schreiber looking dude on the bottom cake that he needs to leave his champagne bottle at home. No open containers. Hey, wait, maybe he's going to put a message in that bottle in the hopes of getting himself off the deserted island! Nevermind, I think I just figured out the cake.

Wow! This is an amazing site, thank you for creating it. But I think the second "surfer dude" might actually be modeled after Burt Reynolds' nude centerfold in Cosmo or Playgirl or wherever it was. What do you think?

The tiny landscaped area is set off so that there will be a huge area on which to write important bachelor/bachelorette party messages -- otherwise the whole cake would have "lawn" on it. Of course the icing has to be beige -- that's what color the ground is. This is an up-to-the-minute, eminently practical, quintessentially Brooklyn cake design, and it reminds me of the wedding cake in the window of a bakery in Sunset Park that was a replica of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows church, complete with its twin outdoor staircases upon which were posed at least 8 bridesmaids in deep purple and mustard yellow gowns.

Years ago, I was the cake decorator at a local supermarket deli, and both of these were available as "kits" to decorate cakes. If memory serves me correctly, the "macho man" cake was decorated with a bearskin rug (made out of icing, naturally), but I don't really remember how we decorated the "Sexy Sue" cakes. Thankfully, both of these were short-lived trends, and my cake customers went on to more tasteful decorations :-)

oh good lord! I took photos of these same two cakes at a bakery in Brooklyn the same week. I thought the female doll was hilarious, as she'd obviously fallen over into the icing and had been put back in to place without being cleaned off. Looks like she's been mudwrestling. Tasty!

It's been too long since I've seen a Sexy Sue figurine in full nude under the mesh "dress." I was really excited when they decided to clean her up with leather bondage looking bra top and bottom. Oh Bakery Crafts, you kinky devil.

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What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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